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Scottish LMCs want final sign-off on new contract

Scottish grassroots may demand final sign-off powers on the new Scottish GP contract ahead of its implementation next year.

A motion to the Scottish LMC Conference, to be held next week, urges LMCs to ’insist’ that ’a fully defined and costed contract be presented to the [Scottish LMC Conference] in 2017’.

The motion proposes that the conference ’supports’ the new contract, which has been under negotiation by the Scottish GPC and government since 2014 and is due to be introduced from April 2017, but also raises a number of concerns.

As previously reported, the new contract will see the end of QOF in Scotland and GPs working as clinical leaders in new ‘community health hubs’, supported by a multi-disciplinary team and focusing on more complex cases.

Other issues around the new contract to be debated at the LMC conference include:

  • the role of GPs in the new community clinical teams that are being developed;
  • whether there will be sufficient staff to support GPs and;
  • whether the work to be done by other practitioners other than the GP will be ‘clearly defined’ prior to the introduction of the new contract.

Other debates will focus on increased investment into general practice; improved IT systems; addressing of out-of-hours pension and pay ‘disincentives’; ending inappropriate delegation of work to GPs from secondary care; and improved terms for locum GPs.

The conference will take place on Friday 11 March 2016 at the Beardmore Hotel and Conference Centre in Clydebank.

The motion in full

Agenda Committee: That this conference supports SGPC in negotiating a new GP contract from 2017, but:

i. calls on the Scottish Government to make working as a GP more desirable to achieve an increase in the number of whole time equivalent GPs in Scotland

ii. calls on GPs to have a meaningful leadership role in enhanced clinical teams in the community to ensure these teams work effectively for good patient care

iii. has concerns about whether there will be a sufficient multi-disciplinary workforce to provide the broader team approach required and asks the Scottish Government to ensure that the multi-disciplinary workforce is adequate.

iv. insists that the work done by practitioners other than GPs is clearly defined prior to the introduction of the contract in 2017

v. insists that a fully defined and costed contract be presented to the Conference of Representatives of Scottish Local Medical Committees in 2017

Source: BMA